


saturn never stood a chance

by cachedoeswrite (obiewolf)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: A literal AU, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Past Lives, Astrology, First Meetings, Fluff, Getting Together, Gratuitous Imagery, M/M, One Shot, Parallel Universes, San Francisco, iwaizumi dreams about space and volleyball, oikawa is ultra spiritual, sf is cold in the summer, space references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:47:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25471864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obiewolf/pseuds/cachedoeswrite
Summary: “Do you ever think about your other lives, Iwa-chan?”Hajime can’t say he ever has.I dream though, his mind offers,I wake up sometimes and my fingers itch and I think about the rings on Saturn and palming the sun.The sudden urge to show Tooru the lightjustright in his apartment is unbearable. He doesn’t say any of that though.“No,” he says instead.---In another life, Hajime and Tooru contemplate space, succulents, and all their other lifetimes.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 14
Kudos: 78





	saturn never stood a chance

Hajime wakes up to a tingling numbness in his palm. The pads of his fingertips pulse faintly and it doesn't feel quite like a dream.

Half asleep, he flexes his right hand into the sliver of morning light edging through the curtain, expecting to see the afterimage of some impact, the tell tale pinkness pooling around his callouses. But it's just his palm - pale, smooth, restless.

He lets his arm fall back to his side and the feeling lingers. Blood under skin, the faraway rush of something falling into place. He tries to remember his dream but it’s gone. From his third story window, Hajime can hear the city's wild parrot flock roosting nearby, their pitchy chattering squeaks like laughter, like shoes on a gymnasium floor. 

It is June 10th and Hajime is now 29 years old.

It's an uncharacteristically warm day in San Francisco. Summers here generally come shrouded in fog and chilly ocean breezes. Hajime learned in his first year that the palm tree-lined Californian pastiche did not apply to this city by the bay. But he doesn't mind - the foggy embrace of cool evenings always lulls him to sleep at just the right temperature. 

Today though, the sky is flawless. 

Sunlight pours in a creamy wash through the bay windows. Hajime can smell eucalyptus, jasmine, maybe even the ocean. On days like this, the city positively blooms, preening towards its brilliant sun and he can feel it in his veins, feel his blood run gold. 

There’s a moment in the day he enjoys best in his apartment at this time of year. The morning sun is angled _just so_ that it sends a flood of light right down the hallway, perfectly parallel to the walls. In that moment, he watches the dust motes rising in slow motion, a suspended animation, and his mind drifts towards orbits of planets much larger than his own. He feels expansive and endless, and today more than any other day, he feels like he can almost almost cup its _magnitude_ in his palm, like he could hook his index finger around Saturn’s rings and twirl it through the Milky Way, lighting up the galaxy with cosmic storms. 

Hajime walks into his kitchen to the gentle pings of his tablet charging on the counter. Well-wishes stream across the screen and he scrolls mindlessly through the generic _happy birthdays_ and _sending you all the bests_. His close friends have organized some sort of gathering on the beach that evening, he deduces through the chaos of their group chat, and he saves the pinned location to his phone, softly appreciative. Hajime doesn’t consider himself a birthday person. He’s always preferred to commemorate things he had an active hand in accomplishing, like celebrating a win or a personal achievement. But his mother had always laughed recounting his birth - “ _he knew exactly when he wanted to be born, there was no convincing him otherwise_ ” - so maybe 29 years ago today, he had indeed accomplished his first and arguably greatest achievement. 

Flipping idly through the remaining notifications, his gaze pauses on a particular subject line. It’s from some wellness company he’s never heard of and never signed up for, but he can’t help lingering on it. - **Happy Saturn Return, Hajime! May the universe show you where you’re meant to be -** He doesn’t know what that means, or where Saturn went in order to come back, but he feels the tingle of something looped on his finger, and his palm feels inexplicably empty.

—

It is late afternoon on the same day: the sky is endless and the ocean surges to meet it across the horizon. Hajime steps off the concrete stairs and his feet sink into warm sand. Squinting along the coast, he picks out his friends along the expanse of picnickers, surfers, families, and dogs. Beach days, in the traditional balmy and sun-drenched sense, are rare here despite the miles long stretch of sand and shore. Most of Hajime’s ocean visits have involved knit beanies, blankets, and hot drinks in thermoses. The fog jealously guards the San Francisco coastline most of the year, but there’s no trace of its capricious hold today.

Hajime thinks that the whole city is probably out here at this moment. And justifiably so. The sun is indomitable, even in its last hour, and the warmth fills his lungs and coats his ribs. He kicks off his shoes, rolls up his joggers, and starts to pick his way towards his party. He can see the haphazard banner piked in the sand, _Happy Birthday_ scrolling across the bright blue fabric. His friends have already cleared out the charred concrete dais in the sand, and a fresh stack of logs has been neatly arranged in the center. 

A small cheer goes up from the group as Hajime jogs up. It’s a motley gathering of people he knows from various episodes of his life, a snapshot of all the things that have stuck in the 10 years he’s lived in this colorful city. Hajime gazes fondly at all their faces in the resplendent light, their smiles windswept with laughter. 

“Happy birthday, Hajime.” 

“Looks like the whole city is here celebrating you today.” 

“Even the sun showed up, that’s how you know the universe loves you." 

Matt and Makki, former college roommates, run up to hug him from either side. Hajime shoves them good-naturedly and smiles at their palpable joy. “Hey, thanks for putting this on,” he tells them quietly. They press closer and Hajime feels anchored, safely harbored by the satisfying gravity of knowing he is exactly where he is meant to be. It’s a vast sensation. He feels as endless as the sky.

“Hey I see - ! Oikawa, hey! We’re over here! Oikawa!” 

Matt breaks off and is suddenly gesturing enthusiastically to an individual further down the beach. “I invited my neighbor, sorry,” he says to Hajime with an apologetic grin, “He’s cool though, he helped me track down the jerk who’s been leaving passive aggressive notes on my car, and he’s new to the city, so…you know, I thought it’d be nice.” 

Hajime nods along agreeably. Sure it’s his birthday but it’s not like it’s _his_ beach or _his_ sunset and really, this gathering was all Matt’s idea anyway. He follows the direction of his friend’s waving to the figure now steadily approaching, catching a glimpse of tousled hair brilliantly limned in the golden hour, and wonders if it’s the newcomer’s first time here on this beach, on this knife’s edge of the continent. The wind has picked up and the waves whip and froth, the illuminated spew like embers white hot. 

The sun has reached the angle where it’s inescapable and Hajime feels like the world is suddenly too _much_ but it’s too late and Matt’s neighbor is already right in front of him.

“Hi! I’m Tooru,” the newcomer says, slightly breathless from plodding through the loose sand. He is barefoot and bright-eyed, smile as wide as the ocean, and just as full of secrets. He extends an elegant hand in greeting. 

Hajime blinks against the sunlight and clasps Tooru’s offered palm. It’s cool and dry against his skin. 

“I’m Hajime,” he says, pauses, and for some reason he feels like this stranger needs to know, “Iwaizumi.”

“Oh!” Tooru’s mouth forms a perfect ellipse _,“_ Japanese?” Hajime nods and Tooru’s eyes crinkle at the edges. “Iwa-chan then,” he winks as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to assign pet names to people you just meet. 

Hajime feels his eyebrows lift, feels any budding protest die weakly before it’s expressed out loud, and takes in Tooru’s light brown eyes and hair, both thrown amber in the sunset. _Tooru Oikawa. “_ You as well?” he asks skeptically.

“Half,” Tooru confesses, “but I can count in Japanese. And I know enough compliments to get discounts at all the shops in Japantown.” He winks again and Hajime thinks that Tooru is maybe the most ridiculous person he has ever met and will ever meet again.

“Hi Mattsun!” Tooru turns his attention over to Matt. “Thanks for inviting me! This is amazing, I feel like I’m at the edge of the world.” 

“I see you’ve met the birthday boy,” Matt bumps Hajime with his shoulder. “We gather in his honor.”

Tooru’s illuminated eyes turn back in his direction, and Hajime notices the rings of darker brown, almost purple, in the irises, orbiting his pupil. “Ah! Then this is for you,” Tooru presses a small tissue-wrapped parcel into his hand. It’s heavy and dense and nestles right into the heart of his palm. “Open it,” Tooru’s teeth catch his own bottom lip and Hajime has a hard time looking away.

He eases the tape from the package, carefully unwinding the wrapping until something cold and smooth drops into his palm. Hajime gazes at the perfectly black sphere cupped in his hand. It’s made of some sort of stone, polished and solid. A three dimensional void.

“Obsidian,” Tooru smiles against the tip of his index finger, “for your Saturn return. Mattsun told me you’re 29.”

Hajime swears the horizon _tilts_ and his footing stutters. “My what?”

“Saturn you know, with the rings,” Tooru gestures concentrically with his hands. “Every 29 years it returns to the place in the sky where it was at your birth and things can get crazy.” His fingers go wiggly. “Saturn represents a lot of things, but I think of it as a big identity and reality kind of planet. Like a cosmic coming of age. While it’s passing through, you’ll find out all sorts of things about yourself. It deconstructs your reality and puts it back together in a better way. Isn’t that exciting?” 

Hajime just stares.

“Oh man, I knew you were into that stuff the moment I saw you burning sage over your parking spot,” Matt chuckles.

“Hey! I’m not the one who gets angry notes on my car, Mattsun. Positive energy follows in my wake. This,” Tooru gestures at himself, “is a temple for the purest vibrations ONLY.”

Hajime is helpless to the laughter that seizes his sides. “You are _weird.”_ He figures if they’re at the point where Tooru can call him silly names, he can at least point out the very obvious. Tooru’s responding grin nearly eclipses the sun. 

Hajime wraps his fingers around the obsidian sphere, the coolness of its surface is welcome against the hot tingle of his palms. “Thank you, though, for the gift.”

Tooru’s voice is a teasing lilt in response. “Keep it close, Iwa-chan. Obsidian will keep you grounded, especially when things get _weird_.” 

—

Later, when the bonfire is near embers and the stars are sprayed across the sky, Hajime dips his fingers into his pocket and the cold sphere slides against his nails. There’s only a scattering of people left on the beach. The ocean is an invisible swath beyond the circle of dying firelight, but its relentless rhythm vibrates through the clean night air. He spots Tooru across the fire circle, engaged in a lively conversation, all fingers animating. Their eyes meet over the space of a heartbeat and...

Hajime feels an inevitability like time, like gravity. He’s a planet, only rock and dust, and Tooru is a star, lucent in the dark, pulling him into orbit. _The solar system didn’t stand a chance,_ he thinks.

Before he knows it, Tooru is in front of him once again, a mirror to their meeting, pressing in for a goodbye hug. “Thanks for having me at your party, Iwa-chan. It was my first time out here and it was so so beautiful.”

Hajime doesn’t know what to say. _It was nice to meet you_ feels inaccurate somehow and _I’m glad I found you_ feels more correct but inappropriately dramatic. He settles for a generic, but honest, “I hope to see you again.” Tooru looks at him like he’s hung the moon.

“Mattsun told me you’ve lived in the city for almost ten years. I bet you know all the hidden spots and _secret_ places.” 

Hajime feels pleased, “I know some things.”

At this, Tooru leans in close, violating orbit, and Hajime can barely hear the waves over the sound of his own rushing heart. Tooru’s breath tickles like fog, like secrets.

“Will you show me your universe then, Iwa-chan?”

—

They meet up for coffee a week later. It’s an unpretentious spot, wooden and warm, tucked between the train tracks and pastel-dotted hills. Hajime waits outside as Tooru ducks back into the cafe to ask for more agave nectar and oat milk. His own drip coffee swirls in the paper cup, a mirrored black, smoothly void. _Like obsidian._

The sun is high in the sky, a perfect white disc. Hajime closes one eye, reaches out fingers splayed and palms the sun, pinning it against the endless blue.

He imagines the sun curving against his palm, how hot and brilliant it would be, how the solar flares would dance between his knuckles. He imagines the strength it would take to pull a star out of the sky, flexing against its gravity, the cataclysmic impact of it meeting hard earth. His palm stings and stings. 

Tooru emerges with a jingle of the door chime, coffee balanced between slender fingers, victorious. There’s a dab of foam on his upper lip, a lone cumulus.

Hajime looks at him and thinks, unbidden, _I could spike the sun itself if you tossed it to me._

—

It’s past midnight and they’re lying spread eagled on a grassy slope high above the city. The skyline below shimmers and pulses against the night, tendrils of low fog unfurling against the taller buildings.

“Do you ever think about your other lives, Iwa-chan?” 

Hajime can’t say he ever has. _I dream though,_ his mind offers, _I wake up sometimes and my fingers itch and I think about the rings on Saturn and palming the sun._ The sudden urge to show Tooru the light _just right_ in his apartment is unbearable. He doesn’t say any of that though.

“No," he says instead.

“I think about mine all the time," Tooru muses on, “I was definitely a cat at some point, maybe a few times. An Akashic reader told me once that I was an alien that helped the Egyptians build the pyramids. No wonder they turned out so well! I was probably a pretty handsome alien, don’t you think?”

Hajime huffs. “Right, it’s amazing the pyramids aren’t a statue of your alien self instead.”

“Well that’s because you were probably there with me too,” Tooru plows on unhindered, “poor little Earthling Iwa-chan knew he could never capture the glory of my true form, so we settled for some triangles instead. It’s okay, you tried your best.” The smile on his face, tongue poking out right at the corner, is insufferable. 

Hajime can’t help the breathless chuckle that escapes his lips. “Triangles are perfectly elegant shapes!”

“Exactly!” Tooru pushes himself up one elbow, eyes full of starlight, “You were awed, Iwa-chan, just floored by my alien perfection and the pyramids are your eternal tribute to my glory. In your minimalist earthbound way. So thanks for that! I love them. Really.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Hajime manages, swiping the other man’s elbow out from under him. Tooru lands with a soft _oof_ back on the cool grass, irises sparkling and mouth full of night air. Their fingers brush as he readjusts. 

For a moment, the damp earth beneath Hajime feels warm and shifts like sand, like a nebula. His palms feel hot and he rotates his hand so that their index fingers loop together, knuckles brushing. Tooru’s hand is as cool and dry as the day they met. _Let’s make a cosmic storm,_ Hajime thinks, _We already made the pyramids, after all._

“You’re welcome,” Hajime finally says - minutes, hours, _lifetimes -_ later, the smile evident in his voice. Tooru hums, satisfied, and the stars wink back in delight.

—

Through stolen evenings and lazy weekends wandering the fogline and hilltops, weaving through the looming eucalyptus and pastel neighborhoods, Hajime slowly lets the constellations of his universe unfold. He shows Tooru the seabirds and the sea lions, the small concrete alleyways drenched vivid in kaleidoscopic murals, the impossibly long staircases that stripe the hills like a larger than life game of chutes and ladders. Tooru revels in all of it, breathless. “I’ll race you!” he gasps as he hurdles past Hajime up the mosaic-lined steps two at a time, and his laughs echo across the entire city.

On a particularly mistblown night in July, Hajime leads Tooru, hand in hand, out to a narrow slice of land off the northern coast of the city, where some eccentric artist has installed a series of hidden pipes along the tideline. 

“It’s called the wave organ,” Hajime whispers, as a ghostly forlorn note drifts over the rhythmic lapping of the waves. “The tide pushes air into the pipes and plays them.” He points to the various openings rising up along the water’s edge. Another stanza of watery echoes quivers through the fog around them.

Tooru is wonderstruck, pupils blown wide enough to steal light from the moon. His lips part in a prolonged exhale. Hajime feels drunk. They stand there fingers clasped, listening to the otherworldly tune, aquatic and inaccessible.

Tooru speaks so quietly that Hajime has to lean in until the words softly puff against his cheek. “Iwa-chan, is this what merpeople sound like?”

“You tell me,” Hajime murmurs back, “You probably were one at some point.”

“Oh was I!” Tooru practically _sparkles_ at the remark. He’s so _close_ and Hajime is caught in the undertow, dizzy and helpless. He’s not sure if it feels more like winning or losing. “You should recognize it then, Iwa-chan. I would have been singing to you from the ocean every night.”

“Right, trying to drown me…” Hajime mutters, attempting to suppress his own traitorous smile.

“Rude, Iwa-chan!” Tooru’s chuckles intermingle with the wave organ’s mysterious reverberations.

The fog clears for a moment, and the full moon is suddenly in sharp relief against the night sky.

Tooru inhales, one long anticipation, and gracefully lifts his arms overhead, stretching his fingertips, all ten, to frame the glowing orb in exaltation. He purses his lips as if in deep concentration, looks up at his hands, and pulses his fingers _just_ so _._ Hajime swears the moon wobbles in its orbit, imagines it popping out of the sky like a button and falling, falling, a perfect and familiar arc. Hajime’s palm burns. _Exactly how I like,_ he thinks. By now, he is used to the strange thoughts like comets that blaze through his mind when Tooru is around. He catches each one like a falling star and folds them away like a secret.

Tooru floats his hands slowly back down to Earth, fingers finding Hajime’s again. His hands are cold. _Moondusted,_ Hajime thinks, and blows on Tooru’s fingers to warm them. 

Later, as they are walking back towards the city, his scarf looped around both of them, Hajime lets his gaze take in Tooru’s windblown hair, the pinkness of his nose and cheeks and knuckles. Tooru Oikawa, with his head in the clouds, stars in his eyes, and the moon in his hands. Hajime thinks desperately, _How can I even show you my universe when I’m the one caught in your orbit?_ He can still hear the distant rumblings of the wave organ behind them. _I would have drowned willingly, to be in your ocean._

—

With every secret Hajime shares, Tooru trades him one of his own. 

For example, Hajime learns that Tooru is irresistibly drawn to a specific shade of seafoam green, the peculiar light teal of macarons and expensive bicycles. At one thrift store, Tooru practically loses his mind over a monstrously overstuffed armchair in _just_ the right color and Hajime reluctantly helps him carry it the ten soul-crushing blocks back to Tooru’s loft apartment. Besides the chair, Tooru also gains the nickname “Shittykawa” on that particular excursion and Hajime refuses to do anything for him for two weeks after that. The armchair is a hit, though, and they fight over sitting in it at every occasion, inevitably ending up in a draw, limbs tangled and pressed together.

Hajime also discovers Tooru’s penchant for aeoniums, especially the black ones. “They look like alien surveillance technology,” he insists, marveling, face inches away from the inky petals. Hajime doesn’t always understand Tooru’s intense fascination with aliens and the _mysteries of the universe_ , but he grudgingly admits that aeoniums do look a bit extraterrestrial. Tooru insists that he _must_ have his own and enlists Hajime’s help in potting an unreasonable number of succulents into his balcony planters. They thrive in his care.

One of Hajime’s favorite secrets about Tooru, if he had to choose, is how emotionally invested the latter becomes regarding the games of strangers. Whether it be a pick up soccer game, ultimate frisbee in the park, or _especially_ beach volleyball, Tooru's eyes light up and miss nothing. He will sit and watch a game for hours, regaling Hajime with speculation on each player's preferred position, their injuries both recent and chronic, what they like to eat for breakfast, their sun, moon, AND rising signs. The scariest thing, Hajime thinks, is that Tooru’s probably right about most of it. His powers of observation are frighteningly uncanny. _I wonder what you would say about me,_ Hajime muses in these moments.

But for all of Tooru’s enigmatic smiles and strange moods, Hajime knows the biggest secret is that Tooru is _not_ a mystery of the universe. Tooru is an open book, his heart bared to the cosmos, a delicate and porous thing. He is vain and temperamental and seized by whims as fickle as San Francisco summers. He holds nothing back and in those catastrophic moments, Hajime feels like he’s staring into a supernova. 

Despite all this, Hajime knows that the universe _adores_ Tooru. How could it be anything other than a gift from the universe itself, that Tooru _feels_ and _knows_ and _needs_ so much, that the world sparkles just a little bit brighter for him in all dimensions. For anyone else it would be absolutely _overwhelming_ , but for Tooru perhaps it is just whelming enough. 

Hajime feels inexplicably lucky, and exhausted, to know Tooru Oikawa, to have found him here in the space of this existence. To know him is to peer into the heart of a star, unblinking. Hajime thinks of all the other versions of himself out there in the spaces beyond this one and sends them an urgent thought through the liminal corridors of space and time: _You have to find him._

—

When they kiss for the first time, Hajime’s immediate thought is that _it isn’t the first time_. 

They’re sitting in the kitchen of Hajime’s apartment, a small breakfast nook set against the window. They had met up for brunch at a nearby cafe and are idly contemplating plans for the rest of the day. It’s an unrushed and comfortable morning, but the air feels charged somehow with the gentlest tension. There’s a pot of tea cooling on the table and an entire universe unspoken between them. The obsidian sphere sits on the window sill, solid and opaque in the heady light. Hajime craves its weighted coolness against his palm, but settles for pressing his hands onto the tabletop instead. Tooru’s uncharacteristically quiet, a dreamy expression on his face. His gaze shifts back up from contemplating the steam from his cup and their eyes meet. 

_Oh._ Hajime’s breath stutters and he succumbs to the simply inevitable. 

“Hey,” he says, voice low, “I’m going to kiss you now.” 

Tooru doesn’t look surprised in the least, his knowing smile is soft as dawn. “I would like that very much, Iwa-chan.”

It’s unclear who leans in first, whose fingers trace across the table surface to find the other’s. The morning sun is pale, diaphanous. Time trickles in the molten light.

Tooru’s lips are warm and smooth against his own. Hajime closes his eyes. _Finally,_ he thinks and, _here we are again._ It feels like an arrival, a return. He sees the afterimage of a solar eclipse behind his eyelids, how perfectly the moon slides into totality, as if it was always meant to sit within the sun’s corona. Hajime is certain he knows now what the moon must feel in that moment. Utterly held.

Tooru is still smiling, and Hajime can feel the crescent curve of it against his mouth. They part briefly and Tooru presses in for a second kiss, a third, and another until there is an entire constellation of touches strewn between them. 

Hajime pauses and dares to open his eyes. “I want to show you something,” he whispers against Tooru’s lips.

“Can it wait?” Tooru nips teasingly at his bottom lip.

Hajime’s breath hitches and he manages to pull away. “No, but it’ll be quick, I promise.”

He pulls Tooru up from the window bench, their fingers still interlaced, and leads him toward the hallway. As the Earth turns, the sunlight floods into the space, pooling into every crease and corner. The light pours down the hallway, perfectly angled, just the way Hajime loves. Tooru inhales sharply, enthralled, as the universe goes achingly and impossibly still.

Hajime once again thinks about Saturn’s rings and knows now with certainty that they’ve always felt like Tooru’s fingers looped through his own. He feels the limitlessness of his own being, the breathless potential of storms brewing on the horizon of the cosmos. He can see with perfect clarity all his existences refracted and tesselating into each other, each one a reflection of everything he is in this very moment. And in each one of them, he knows Tooru is there too.

In the next breath, the universe moves on and the angle of the light slips. Hajime is suddenly back in his third story apartment in the heart of 21st century San Francisco, California on the Planet Earth and Tooru is kissing him again.

—

“That guy is definitely a Scorpio,” Tooru points unabashedly at a tall player diving towards the grass. “Look at how focused he is, Iwa-chan, it’s quite scary. Almost more than you!”

He’s sitting with his arms wrapped around his knees, head resting on Hajime’s shoulder. They’re perched on the perimeter of a casual volleyball game in the park, and Tooru is completely absorbed. His tongue pokes out slightly from the corner of his mouth and his gaze roams around the makeshift court hungrily. Hajime has been listening to his lilting commentary for over an hour and although quite entertained, he feels himself getting restless.

Tooru must notice the tension in Hajime’s shoulder and shifts away, stretching his arms overhead luxuriously. His eyes are twinkling.

“Ready to play, Iwa-chan?”

Hajime snorts in surprise and makes a face, “Have you ever even touched a volleyball in your life, Shittykawa?”

“Not in this one,” Tooru winks. “But it doesn’t seem all _that_ difficult to figure out. Come on!”

Before Hajime can voice any further objections, Tooru is already striding purposefully towards the court, eyes full of mischief and a smile to dazzle the sun. In a perfect show of breezy ruthlessness, he quickly and efficiently charms every single stranger on either side of the net until they are all but begging him to join the game. Within ten minutes, Tooru has secured both him and Hajime’s place on the same team, and Hajime is appalled when the tall presumably Scorpio player nonchalantly refers to Tooru as “captain”. 

_And people think_ I’m _the scary one,_ Hajime thinks to himself, feeling something akin to pride. _They never stood a chance._

As the game begins, Hajime feels a bit awkward. His technique is poor, and he’s still trying to figure out the exact rules of the game other than to keep the ball from touching the ground. He’s never been one to shy away from a challenge though, and when he catches Tooru’s gaze, he can see the glint in the other’s eyes that says, _Keep up_. 

_I won’t lose to you,_ Hajime thinks, heat prickling in his palms.

After the first few rallies, Hajime is surprised to feel a distant familiarity start to pull at his movements. The ball still doesn’t quite go where he means to bump it, and his serves barely make it over the net if at all, but there are undeniable moments when his body reacts on its own accord, tugged by the threads of some greater intuition. Hajime lets himself sink into these moments, lets the rhythm of the game thrum through his veins, and finds himself enjoying it much more than he had anticipated. 

After a particularly satisfying play - Tooru serving in an enviable arc, their opponents scrambling to return, Hajime receiving beautifully afterwards and then watching his teammates bring down the ball onto the other side of the net - he is hooked. From the corner of his eye, Hajime tracks Tooru holding his own as well, the initially fumbling movements smoothing over to reveal an innately mercurial grace. 

Both of them are immersed in the hypnotic back and forth. The encouraging energy of their fellow players, strangers turned comrades, is exhilarating. 

“Damn, you guys can really play,” Scorpio grins, cat-like, at them, sweat beading as he drops both hands onto his knees in anticipation of the last set for the day. 

Tooru just beams in response, hands on his hips and a very portrait of cheeky confidence. Hajime licks his lips, tasting salt. “Let’s finish this then.”

Their opponent’s serve is wobbly over the net and Scorpio dives to bring it up. The ball veers at an angle, sailing past the haphazardly drawn boundary lines.

In a flash, Hajime sees Tooru leap after it, an impossibly long stretch of limbs. It’s a scene unfolding in slow motion, the air suddenly thick with inevitability. Ten fingertips find the ball and Tooru gasps “Iwa-chan!” as he sends it flying miraculously back towards the court. It’s a low sweeping arc parallel to the net. Hajime feels his muscles bunch, the heavy tension in his body like a storm. The incoming ball fills his vision, hurdling toward its apex. He already knows the toss is perfect.

So Hajime jumps. His spine is curved and he feels gravity surrender its possessive hold. In that weightless moment, suspended against the stratosphere, he feels like he can see the very curvature of the Earth, the stars beyond Saturn’s rings, all the way to the vanishing point of the entire universe. 

And at the center of it all is Tooru Oikawa, with a wink and a smile like the end of the world.

The ball meets the open palm of Hajime’s hand and he knows he’s won.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This story was brought to you by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce & Tourism. JUST KIDDING, but actually this was a thinly-veiled excuse to wax poetic about my favorite city in the world. (All the places mentioned in the fic are real!) Thanks for humoring me. 
> 
> Happy belated birthday, Oikawa. May you always find your Iwa-chan.
> 
> I literally write a fic once every Saturn return so this is it. It came to me all at once like a fever dream. Thanks to my awesome sister for beta-ing this.
> 
> My main medium is art so please follow along my shenanigans on [IG](http://www.instagram.com/cachedoesart) or [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/cachedoesart)
> 
> Any guesses who Scorpio is? ;)


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